As the end of 2011 draws closer, I can safely say that it has been a fruitful year filled with a mix pain, lessons, and success. Looking back to January of this year, I remember just how lost I was at the time. Penn Olson pivoted so much and my final bet was to focus on tech in asia. And things have worked out well so far, I think. Just 12 months ago, few who I spoke to believed that Asia needed a media machine to tell the technology and entrepreneurial ...
Tag Archives: Blog
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![Blogopolis Visualizes The Tech Blogging Buzz in Japan [PICS]](http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/blogopolis-3-250x250.jpg)
Dec 7 2011
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An Interview With The Founder of Hongkiat.com
If you’re into design, art, and/or tech, you’ve likely drawn inspiration from Hongkiat.com before. Hongkiat is a design-focused weblog based in Malaysia and is founded by non-other than Lim Hong Kiat himself. The blog is ranked highly on Alexa (above 1,800) with a Google Pagerank of five. Hong Kiat also revealed that his blog generates a whopping 6 million page views per month and is profitable just by selling ad spaces. I find his story interesting and thought it would be great to contact him to find out more about his background ...
Nov 28 2011
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Want Made-in-Japan Android Apps? Infocom Has a Solution
Infocom Corporation, a Tokyo-based system integration company whose subsidiary is the world's famous blog platform developer Six Apart, launched Japan's first Android app showcase portal in English today called Tabroid. Some readers in Japan may be aware that its Japanese version launched one month ago. The portal is maintained by Mediagene Inc who's known for running Japanese editions of popular tech-savvy blogs such as Gizmodo and Lifehacker. The company has a bunch of app reviewers and bloggers across the country, and their blog posts will be published in the both languages from now on. The ...
Nov 20 2011
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Focusing on China
With limited resources — be it time, money, and/or manpower — what will you focus on for your startup? That’s the question I have been asking myself in recent months. Many of our readers might remember that at PO, we used to cover stories from China, India, Indonesia, and Japan. But slowly, our coverage tends to skew towards China. Naturally, our switch in focus upsets some of our friends and readers from Singapore, India, and Indonesia who have asked us if we have given up on Southeast Asia and India. No, we haven’t done ...
Nov 18 2011
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Blogopolis Visualizes The Tech Blogging Buzz in Japan [PICS]
Last week in Fukuoka, I stumbled upon Kaisei Hamamoto, the creator of Blogopolis.jp. He had some great visualization on the screen and out of curiosity, I asked him “what’s that?!” He then zoomed in and out to showoff his creation, Blogopolis.jp, which I must say looks pretty. When first logged in, Blogopolis shows you the various topics that are being discussed/shared within the Japanese tech community. And when you click on a topic, some charts appear to shows you the number of subscribers and bookmarks made. While Stumbleupon, Reddit, and Digg are ...
Oct 29 2011
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Talking Blogging in Indonesia: Why Content is Still King
At IDblognetwork’s blogger event, aka Kopdar Blogger Nusantara, I just spoke with a group of enthusiastic Indonesian bloggers on how our Asia tech blog has grown over the last couple of months. There were no earth shattering secrets, because I suppose most people already know that good content is what really makes the web tick. If you have good content, distribution is not really a problem. I will call my session a gentle reminder that content is (still) king. I have broken down my sharing session into three main, and somewhat broad, ...
Oct 3 2011
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10 PR Tips For Start-ups in Asia
With little budget, using public relations (PR) tactics to gain exposure for your start-up is one of the most cost effective promotional methods. And as a blogger, I do have some points to share with fellow entrepreneurs in Asia on how to do PR in an efficient manner. Here are ten tips, starting from the most obvious: 1. Before you pitch, make sure that your product is ready We often receive pitches from start-ups whose products are still in an early stage. Common bugs are fine but the core functions of the ...
Sep 26 2011
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Michael Arrington is Back Blogging. Hurray!
Fyi, this post has NTDWA: Nothing To Do With Asia. It’s just some thoughts I’d like to share as a tech blogger and a TechCrunch fan. If you follow the tech start-up scene, you know by now that former TechCrunch boss Michael Arrington is no longer with the tech blog he started. For those who don’t know what happened, you can catch the full story by clicking here and here. Thankfully (or unfortunately for haters), Mr. Arrington’s absence is only short term. The man is back to blogging again — not at ...
Sep 23 2011
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Why Are We Blogging So Hard?
We have a hardworking team at PO, consisting of three full-time editors and several contributors. It’s a small but highly efficient team. Each day, we write over ten stories about tech and start-ups in Asia. It’s fun but it's also a lot of hard work. Sometimes people ask me why are we doing this. It’s a common question. And as a struggling start-up at its early stage, I sometimes ask myself this question too — Why are we blogging so hard? We blog hard because we want to make tech in Asia ...
Sep 16 2011
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Why Taking A Break Is Good For Your Start-up
Like most start-up founders, I sleep very little and run on caffeine to keep the energy going. But recently, I gave myself a week’s break to give my body some rest. It’s tough to take a break. And making the decision to say, “Yes, I need to step back for a while,” is even tougher. That’s because there’s just too much work waiting for me to complete. But there must be some point where you stop your work momentarily just to catch a breather. And I’m glad I did. In fact, ...
Sep 2 2011
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At Your Service
Being a blogger and entrepreneur is fun. We get invited to events, speak to different folks in the tech industry, and of course meet interesting start-up founders. Those founders exhibit a variety of characteristics: the determined, the arrogant, the friendly, and the helpful. It’s always fun to chat with fellow entrepreneurs. And in my experience, somehow, part of the conversation will always be about the problems faced by entrepreneurs. Every entrepreneur, no matter how strong or independent, faces problems and would love to share them with fellow entrepreneurs (because entrepreneurs understand entrepreneurs). ...
Sep 2 2011
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TackThis Now in Open Beta, Makes Social Commerce Stores Embeddable By Anyone
Singapore-based start-up TackThis is a platform that allows anyone to create an e-commerce store and embed it on their Facebook pages, blogs or any website. I like the concept and thought that the team has made a solid product that helps non-techies to get the job done. I learned that TackThis is now in open beta. Yes, everyone is now invited to use its service, and it's free for basic account. Damian Chow, co-founder at TackThis, gave me a run through of his creation. The backend of the product looks very ...
![Japan’s Social Giants: Trends in User Numbers [CHART]](http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/IMG_5437-80x80.jpg)
Japan’s Social Giants: Trends in User Numbers [CHART]
Feb 8, 2012
Cazbak Partners With Giant E-commerce Sites, Gives Savings to Consumers in India
Feb 8, 2012
Perx’s ‘Chop Mob’ Helps Coffee Bean Increase 50% in Transaction
Feb 8, 2012
CyberAgent Ventures Invests in Vietnamese Music Service
Feb 7, 2012
Venture Generation: The Latest Startup Incubator in Tokyo
Feb 8, 2012